Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

I took a dainty spoonful of the chocolate concoction. It was too thin. And too sweet. “No more,” I said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Tony cried. “Can’t you at least give me more information than that?” he demanded in a nasty tone I tried to think of as concerned. He wanted to hear sensory analysis, or at least reasons for culinary rejection, straight from the caterer’s mouth. “You realize we’re talking about a lot of money to be made here?” he added in a lower, patronizing voice.

Well. That did it. If the man wanted a bona fide taste assessment, the man was going to get one.

“They’re all boring. They lack creamy texture and depth of taste. They’re too thin. Worse, the seafood and cheese selections are not spicy enough for the American palate. They’re not terrible,” I said wistfully. “Just not… unusual. And I should tell you, Tony, good soups can be extraordinarily labor-intensive. Labor-intensive means lots of money. Plus, soup is volatile. Cook it too long, and it gets like library paste. Cook it too little and it tastes like puddle water.”

He exhaled loudly and put his head in his hands.

Outside the restaurant, the soaking wet Audubon group was breaking up. A tall fellow tentatively raised his head, spylike, and trained his binoculars on Sam’s. No long-billed curlew here, I wanted to call to him, just a few odd ducks. The man watched the restaurant just a moment too long to be credibly involved with the birders. I stared until he folded his body down next to a beat-up Subaru. Oh, Lord: Macguire. Trying to be an investigator. What did he think he was doing? Was he tailing somebody? And who? The teenager was going to give new meaning to the term loose cannon.

Tony caught Sam Perdue’s eye and gave him a sympathetic, sorrowful look. Sam lifted his chin and turned his back. He sure didn’t want to hear analysis of his soup samples from a local caterer.

“This was a mistake,” I said, and meant it. Poor Sam.

“Oh, well.” Tony was already on the rebound, just as he’d been after the scene at the mine party. Apparently things went badly in the venture capital world quite often. “You brought the food for our camping trip.”

“Yes, I did. It’s in the van.”

He smiled mischievously. “Marla says your husband is a big fisherman. Is he jealous of what we’re doing?”

“If you actually catch any trout, he’ll be jealous after the fact.”

Again Tony leaned over and addressed me in an oddly confiding tone. “Has he found my partner yet? Has he gotten any leads?”

“I wouldn’t know. Tom’s off the case.”

He wrinkled his brow and continued to whisper. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Shockley’s the captain, and as you undoubtedly know, his retirement funds are with Prospect. He wants his own people out looking for Albert Lipscomb.”

“But… but… I thought your husband was the best. That’s what Marla says. ‘Tom Schulz is the best.’” Tony’s face contorted with alarm. “Jesus. They’ll never find Albert if Schulz isn’t working the case. What’s the matter with that Shockley? Doesn’t he want to find Albert? What about my money?”

Taken aback, I couldn’t think of a word to say. This possibility had never occurred to me. Tony looked apprehensively in Marla’s direction and said: “Listen, Goldy, speaking of husbands, there’s something more important that I need to talk to you about.” He hesitated. “I’m going to ask Marla to marry me this weekend, when we’re up at Grizzly Creek. Think she’ll have me?”

My heart plummeted. I certainly hope not. “You’re going to ask her to marry you on a fishing trip? Why don’t you just go to the Brown Palace and skip the rod-and-reel routine? I think she’d be more likely to say yes. You’d certainly get less wet.”

“No, no, no,” he said desperately. “This is important, Goldy. I told Marla this fishing trip was going to be a big deal. She thinks we’re trying to catch enormous cutthroat trout. Being by the water is very romantic.” He snorted. “So,” he said as if he were discussing a merger he’d just read about in Forbes, “do you think she wants to get married or not?”

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully, but was prevented from saying more by Marla’s approach. I suddenly had a vision of myself standing up and screaming, Marla, get an ironclad prenuptial agreement! But of course, I didn’t.

“I’ll talk to you when we get back,” Tony whispered hastily. “Save the first weekend in August for us. You can cater the reception.”

I grunted and was stopped from saying Why, thank you, Your Highness, by Marla’s arrival.

“I see you all got your differences straightened out,” she said impatiently. “I just saw Nan and Liz and… uh-oh, there’s Sam!” she hissed. “Did you tell him you didn’t like the soups, Goldy? He certainly doesn’t look very happy.”

That was an understatement. The man looked ready to drown me in his precious soup.

“We need to go,” Tony said curtly. “We still have to pack up all the gear. Is your van locked, Goldy?”

“Come on, guys, I begged them, can’t you go fishing another weekend?”

Tony stared at the ceiling. Over the sound of seagull calls, he said, “We need to get moving. Is the food really in your van, or did you forget it?”

“I remembered the food, chill out. Oh, and speaking of which, refrigerate the” – I lowered my voice – “soup until you leave.” I directed my plea at Marla. “It’s raining. You’re going to get drenched even if it stops – “

“You don’t seem to know who you’re talking to.” Tony’s voice had gone from insulting back to its normal arrogance. “All my stuff is waterproof: Goldy. State-of-the-art. And we’ll get up there when all the other fishermen are too wimpy. We’ll catch a lot.”

“That I doubt,” said Marla with a perfumed shrug. “You won’t say that when I fix you my pan-fried trout,” chided Tony, as he helped her into her shiny white raincoat. “Maybe we won’t even need Goldy’s soup.”

As we left, Edna Hardcastle was condoling with Sam Perdue, who refused to acknowledge our departure.

Outside, Macguire was nowhere to be seen. I hoped, rather than believed, that he’d given up his investigative fantasies.

I turned to Marla. But she was making a joke with Tony, something about being smart like fish, something about schools. The old joke.

I didn’t say what was on my mind. Stay home, Marla, I wanted to beg, but I couldn’t say the words. She looked over, wanting me to share in her laughter. Again I tried to speak, but the warning remained in my throat, unspoken.

Don’t say yes.

11

It was another slow weekend with no bookings and intermittent rain. Friday and Saturday, I experimented with shrimp curry and grilled tuna with Japanese noodIes. After marination in lemon juice and crushed bay leaves, the tuna was delectable. But the curry was so hot even Jake turned his nose up at it. An unusually fierce, windy rainstorm late Saturday night took out our telephones as well as our electric power. We drove through thick fog to get to church, then decided to take Arch and Todd Druckman to a Rockies game, tickets courtesy of the Druckmans’ vacationing neighbors.

The Rockies were playing the Mets. By the eighth inning, the Rockies were ahead by one. In the top of the ninth, with two out and a runner on second, the Mets’ catcher hit a line drive down the left field line.

Ellis Burks backhanded the ball on the first bounce and flung it with such force to home that I thought Jayhawk Owens was going to spin a cartwheel when he reached for it. Owens managed to catch the ball, pivot, and tag the runner out to end the game. The crowd went wild.

The memory of that play flickered in my mind Monday morning, when an event came out of left field that-shocked me no less than if I’d tried to catch Burks’ throw with my bare hands.